


like shooting stars

by Flora_Obsidian



Series: found families [15]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Asexual Character, Asexuality, Families of Choice, Force Ghosts, Queerplatonic Relationships, aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa, the ot3 origins fic is f i n a l l y here
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-03-31
Updated: 2018-03-31
Packaged: 2019-04-16 14:12:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,308
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14166609
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Flora_Obsidian/pseuds/Flora_Obsidian
Summary: Family can be through ties of blood – but it can also be something more.(Rey and Poe and Finn, in three parts)





	like shooting stars

**Author's Note:**

> There's a Tumblr post out there somewhere that's like "me, trying to add fifty words to my work in progress like some kind of Frankenstein's decaying prose monster" and that is me with this story. However!!
> 
> The found families 'verse turns two years old today!!
> 
> (it's still March 31 where I am. there's an hour to go but _it's still March 31_ )
> 
> Anyway. Here's the first chapter of the Jedistormpilot fic I've been struggling with for the better part of a year now, feat. Force ghost grandparents giving relationship advice and no one being quite sure how to communicate and inconvenient illnesses. Chapters 2 and 3 will be from Finn and Poe's POVs, respectively, and then there's probably going to be an epilogue of sorts if I need an extra chapter for it.

For a time, she attributes the lack of certain feelings to her upbringing, growing up almost entirely alone on a desert planet, starved for food and touch in equal measure. That kind of life had no room for romantic attachment, not when everyone was more likely to kill her than not for a piece of her scrap, and sex was just a means for more water. She knows about love in its various forms, but she's never had the chance to experience them, and she's still adjusting to life with the Resistance; there's still no place for it right now, not for her.

But she sees the way that Han and Leia look at each other, sometimes, when they think no one is watching them, expressions weary and battered but so _open_ with one another, a depth of attachment in their locked gazes she can't even begin to fathom, there for an instant and then gone. She sees the holos that some of the pilots keep on the dashes of their fighters, and the way her grandparents look at each other, studies a bit from the Resistance database, takes the holomags left abandoned around the base with tips on dating, gets some answers out of a med droid-- thinks about herself and what she's figured out from other people while she works, repairing equipment, running diagnostics, building her lightsaber.

“Do people actually _want_ to have sex?”

She has her own quarters on the base, a set of two rooms a little bit larger than her old shelter, a bed and a place to store her belongings and some small shelves in one and a 'fresher in the other. The beds are notoriously uncomfortable, and Rey admits the mattress is hard as a rock and a little small, but she spent most of her adolescence sleeping in a parachute-turned-hammock, so she sprawls across it almost every chance she gets and relishes the lack of sand.

Grandpa, true to his word, doesn't look uncomfortable at the question. Confused, a little bit, and he looks at Rey curiously, but willing to answer all the same.

“ _Some people,”_ he says. _“_ _Do you not want to?”_

She pulls a face. “No.” Adds, “It seems messy,” a moment later, which isn't why she doesn't want to, but it's the only thing she can put into words at the moment.

“ _Nothing wrong with that.”_ He settles down at the foot of her bed, pondering his next words. Ghosts weigh nothing; the mattress doesn't shift with his movements. _“Some people want to, some don't.”_

“So it's normal? It's not-- something wrong? 'Cause it's not just-- I don't want to, I don't even like the _idea_ of it.”

“ _There's a whole universe out there, kiddo. Normal applies to a very broad range of things no matter what you're talking about.”_ He shrugs, first, but then looks seriously at her. _“There is nothing wrong with you, Rey. Absolutely nothing. Point me in the direction of anyone who says there is, and I'll haunt them-- actually, no, no. Point Padme. Better idea. Anyway. You don't want to have sex? Don't have sex. Hit anyone who tries to make you. Don't let anyone try to tell you how to feel.”_

“Huh.”

She nods, slowly, and returns her gaze to the ceiling. Grandpa lets her think. There was nothing but time and work on Jakku; they're very good at sitting in a companionable silence.

“What about love?”

It’s not the best way to word it; she’s talked with her grandfather a lot about love, and compassion, and the Jedi. The way she phrases the question makes him take longer to answer, but he does, eventually, brow furrowed-- _“Elaborate?”_

“I love you and Grandma, and I remember I loved Mama and Papa, but that's not--” She makes another face, racking her brain for words she doesn't have and can't apply. “It's not _falling in love_. I don't think I feel that, either.”

“ _Oh!”_ A much quicker response, decidedly less confused. He smiles at her, hopping up to his feet. _“Hold on, let me get your grandmother, she has the right terms for this--”_

And then the blue glow fades from the room, and Rey looks in exasperation at the spot where her grandfather had sat just a moment before. Time doesn't run the same way between wherever Force ghosts stay and the realm of the living, so it's a tossup as to when he'll be back. He does that a lot without meaning to, even though it's been upwards of fifteen years. She and Grandma have endless amounts of fun reminding him of the time he found Rey on her first cycle.

Still, she loves them. In a not-falling-in-love kind of way.

Rey leaves a note in case her grandparents show up in her quarters while she's out and decides to head to the database terminals. Grandpa said something about _terms_ which means he's heard of words to describe what she's talking about which means there are thinks she can look up, and she's quite good at looking for things.

Two hours later, she's learned lots and lots of new words, and lots and lots of new information to process through, but the important thing is that those new words are words with definitions. Explanations. Confirmations that she isn’t necessarily alone in the way she feels (or doesn’t feel) about things, and. Well.

She’s not used to not being alone.

* * *

Grandpa shows up at approximately four in the morning, when Rey is only just starting to wake up, reluctant to leave her warm blankets even though years of habit are telling her she needs to move.

“ _...Shavit,”_ he says after a moment. Grandma lets out a long sigh. _“How long was I gone?”_

“Evening, night,” Rey yawns, blinking a few times. “Ugh. Give me a moment.”

She rolls out of the bed and cushions her fall to the floor with the Force, rolls over again a few minutes later into a sitting position. Grandma is still lecturing Grandpa that he needs to remember how time passes differently for them when she stands up and stumbles in the vague direction of the 'fresher to splash water (running water!) on her face and rinse the taste of morning breath from her tongue, but when she comes back out, they're both laughing at something, smiles lighting up the room almost as much as the blue glow which surrounds them.

“Okay, so what are these words you had to run and get Grandma to tell me?”

* * *

People seem convinced that she and Finn are-- well, Jess Pava waggles her eyebrows and asks if they're “a thing” and Rey looks at her blankly until the silence gets awkward and then they don't talk about it anymore. Finn is only just _barely_ awake, still recovering from the battle at Starkiller, and-- so what, if Rey spends nearly all of her free time in the hospital room with him, sometimes joined by Poe when the older man has the time?

Finn came _back_ for her.

That doesn't mean that they're-- together? A couple? She's grateful to him in a way that she can hardly put into words; he came crashing into her life, and they flew off of Jakku together, and she never has to go back. She's going to, when she gets the time, to get her things, but she has a reason to stay away-- multiple reasons, people, _family_ \--? She cares about him. He's wonderful, and good, and kind, and a kindred spirit-- he, like her, is scoured by the harshness of reality; he, like her, can still smile despite it all; he, like her, runs from what frightens him. She _understands_ him.

If someone asked, she would say they have a connection, but that doesn't _mean_ anything. Not in the way that others seem to think.

Rey settles down at his bedside in the evening, and props her quarterstaff up against the wall and her feet up on another chair. When she opens her eyes again, there’s a jacket draped over her – Poe’s, though the pilot in question is nowhere to be seen.

It’s warm, and she’s slept in less comfortable places. She looks at Finn, sleeping quietly, his presence in the Force something dim and quiet – good. No nightmares, then. She closes her eyes. Doesn’t open them again until the morning.

* * *

One time she walks into Finn’s corner of the med center, and he’s looking up at the ceiling with an expression she’s never seen on his face before, and Rey immediately falls into a defensive train of thought. She knows she can overreact sometimes, except it’s not an overreaction to her, not the way she grew up. It’s just how she is, and it isn’t going to change any time soon.

“Did someone say something to you?” she demands. Finn doesn’t get much of the vitriol against him where he is, and all the doctors are professional enough to do their jobs no matter what they think, but she hears it. Poe hears it.

He’s startled out of whatever thoughts he’s in, and he turns to look at her with a puzzled kind of look. “Poe asked me if I like you?” he finally tells her, uptick at the end of the phrase turning it into a bewildered question, _of course we’re friends why wouldn’t I_.

She thinks she mirrors his expression for a moment, but then she sees one of the doctors turn to hide their smile, and she wants to scream a little bit. Finn is her _friend_. _Poe_ is her friend. Why the whole base seems determined to gossip about things that aren’t even happening – that Rey doesn’t really _want_ to happen, not like that – is infuriating.

“They think we're dating,” Rey says flatly.

Finn looks relieved. Rey is confused. She raises an eyebrow, and he tries to smooth out his expression when he catches her looking, but he's been behind a mask his whole life, and he isn't very good at it.

“I, uh-- well--”

BB-8 comes rolling back in to save the day, whistling and chirping excitedly at the two of them, Designation: Friend-Rey and Designation: Big Deal, interrupting Finn from whatever explanation he was about to stumble over. Poe, as always, isn’t far behind the little ball droid, and comes back in talking about whatever meeting he just finished and so plainly happy to see the both of them. Finn's smile is bright enough that even Starkiller couldn't drain it dry, Rey thinks--

 _Oh_.

Mentally, she compares the way Han and Leia are in their quieter moments (and reminds herself she needs to keep avoiding them until she figures out a way to _tell them already_ \--), and the way her grandparents are almost all of the time, and narrows her eyes a bit at the two men in the room.

“Do you think Finn and Poe like each other?” she asks that night, lying on her bed and staring at the ceiling. Grandma _hmms_ from where she sits on the floor; Grandpa, sitting at the foot of Rey's bed, braids her hair.

“ _It... is rather obvious,”_ she replies eventually, looking for a tactful way to express herself. She looks like she might start to say more, but then Grandpa laughs.

“ _If I can pick up on it, then yes, it's obvious.”_

“Huh,” she says, and then doesn't say anything for several minutes after. When she closes her eyes, she can still see traces of blue, the glow of the Force lighting up the room and casting odd shadows on the walls. Then: “I'd like to see them happy.”

Her eyes are still shut, so she doesn't see the way Grandma looks sad, or how Grandpa's hands drop to his wife's shoulders, how he bows his head and takes slow, shaky breaths even though he no longer needs to breathe.

“ _...We would be very glad to see you happy,”_ he finally says, but by then, she is already asleep.

* * *

 

Finn is released from medical on a strict diet – stormtroopers, evidently, are only given specific types of ration bars, and there’s very little that his stomach can handle right now – and a strict physical therapy regimen – the lightsaber didn’t damage his spinal cord, somehow, against all odds, but there’s muscle damage the Resistance doesn’t have the bacta to heal – and straight into the arms of Rey and Poe, both grinning. Poe has filled up a balloon with helium and tied it to BB-8’s antenna, much to the droid’s annoyance, and much to Finn’s obvious delight, and the three of them take their first few steps down the hall together.

It’s then that Rey realizes she has friends in this place, and it nearly stops her cold in her tracks, but she hears her name like it’s being spoken from a long way away and forces herself to listen.

“--Rey’s told me a lot of things about the mess hall here,” Finn is saying excitedly. “Like how good the food is, and I _know_ I won’t be able to eat most of it right now, but--”

“I’m game for the mess hall,” Poe cuts in with a laugh, and then looks over at her. “You game for the mess hall?”

“I-- yeah.” She smiles, hesitant, but she never had very much to smile about on Jakku. She thinks a lot of her smiles are hesitant when they aren’t directed towards her grandparents. “Yeah, sounds good.”

* * *

Rey hates crying. It’s a waste of water. It’s a _weakness_ , on Jakku, in more ways than one; don’t let them know you’re frightened, don’t let them think you’re weak, don’t let them think they’re _better_. And yet.

Something gapes open inside of her like a void; the feeling of being _held_ only fills it a little. It’s not enough and too much all at once, Poe’s arms around her as she presses her face into the crook of his neck and sobs, and Finn holding her hand, and the name _Skywalker_ drifting through the air between the three of them. She doesn’t know what to do about her family – Han, and Leia, aunt and uncle – the map to Luke Skywalker, to the father who left her – but just being able to _tell_ someone about it…

“It’s your family,” Poe says as she shakes, “your choice to talk to them or not. But right now, we’re just gonna sit and be quiet, all right-- just breathe, Rey, it’s okay. We’re not going anywhere.”

She trusts them both more than she should, two people she’s only known for just a little while. But it feels natural to trust them, feels _right_. So she lets them hold her, just for a little while, and dares to think that maybe this is family, too.

* * *

“D’you remember being with them?” Poe asks her one day, abrupt, the two of them sitting in the mostly-empty mess hall, late one night. Rey couldn’t sleep, and Poe had just gotten back from flying a recon mission.

She looks up with a frown from her food. “Who?”

“Your family. Your parents, on Yavin.”

The question catches her off-guard, and for a moment she wants to shut down completely, or get up and walk away-- but it’s Poe. He’d have a reason for asking.

Her memories of childhood are of the old moisture farm; of the endless desert sands; of being hungry; of fighting for every piece of scrap and every scrap of food. And before that…?

“I don’t… Sometimes, I think I do.” She shrugs a little, and consciously tries to avoid curling in on herself. It’s Poe. She can talk to Poe, and she does want to answer. It’s… it’s hard to open up. “I like to think I do. But everything is so vague, sometimes it might as well be something I dreamed up, or something I’m imagining from a story.” Her grandparents told her so many stories.

“And… and sometimes,” she continues, even quieter. “Sometimes… I know Mama had red hair. I can picture it, even if it is just a dream. Papa had a pilot’s uniform, or brown robes. They were soft. And I know I must have survived what-- what happened, at the Temple, but I don’t think I wanted to remember it. So I don’t.”

That’s a lie. Sometimes, she dreams, and there’s a young voice telling her to run. Someone calling her _Rey-Rey_. Someone screaming. Maybe it’s just a nightmare. But she doesn’t want to remember it, and so, she doesn’t.

Poe doesn’t say anything back; he looks down at his own food, a little furrow between his eyebrows. Rey reaches out to poke it, and he startles.

“Why’d you ask?”

“I was…” He sighs, a little bit. “I lived on Yavin, with my dad. It was a good distance from the Temple, but he’d let me go and visit sometimes. Master Skywalker’s kid used to run around all over the place and get into mischief.”

Rey doesn’t know how to react to that, so she doesn’t, just sits there. She’d known that Poe had lived on Yavin, and she knows that he’s older than her – old enough for him to maybe remember what she refused to, but--

“I guess, I can-- I could tell you, about that place. What I remember of it. If you wanted me to.”

“I--”

Poe looks like he’s about to change the subject, very soon, very quickly, so she blurts out the first words that come to her.

“I’d like that.”

He startles again. “Really?”

“I… Yes. Not-- not now. Maybe not for a while. But, someday. I think I’d like that.”

Poe nods, and offers a hesitant smile. Rey smiles back.

* * *

There's a day when she doesn't feel well, but she hasn't been feeling well a lot, lately-- there's a clammy feeling that crawls across her skin, and a sick feeling in her stomach every time she considers seeking out Han and Leia, though she knows she _needs_ to, needs answers, and they deserve to _know_ \-- and yet the thought makes her ill, and harder for her to sleep at night. She still isn't sure what she can and can't eat, here, but the list of what she _can_ eat is getting smaller and smaller. Like yesterday, when she ate one of the fruit cups with her dinner, something she's eaten several times before, she had to fight not to throw up.

Grandma and Grandpa haven't been around quite as much either, since the longer they stay away from wherever it is that Force ghosts are supposed to stay, the harder it is for them to keep themselves here. Even Grandpa, half-conceived by the Force itself, struggles after a time. She can't ask them what they think is wrong or for advice on what they think she should do, and so she does what she has always done, and grits her teeth and eats what she can stomach and keeps pushing forward.

There's a day when she doesn't feel well, and she goes through the routine that she's settled into despite it-- wakes up, picks at breakfast, visits Finn, helps with repairs, snags a lunch, avoids her aunt and uncle-- the avoiding comes before her second visit to Finn, when she has a small chunk of free time, and the hallways are going curiously bright and dark. Her head aches. Thoughts are slow and sluggish, but she recognizes a problem when she finds one, and some part of her brain thinks _Jakku_ and she stumbles back to her quarters and her bed, a place that she knows is safe, quiet, _hers_ \-- she remembers the hallways (they're spinning oddly, now), and the sound of her door sliding shut behind her, and a terrible, painful twisting in her stomach, and then she doesn't remember much of anything at all.

{end Part Rey}

**Author's Note:**

> So! As always, I hope you enjoyed the chapter. The next two should be up in the next few days -- I'm hoping to keep within the start and finish dates of _lights will guide you home_ for this. Thank you all so much for sticking with me these past two years, all of you, it really means a lot to me. Here's to however many more years it takes to get this done!!


End file.
